We Live On
by Katie Grey
Summary: Lucius is dying, and mad, after a year in Azkaban. Narcissa is not worried - she knows that his magic will live on. But Draco is not so sure. And when he has the chance to ask his father one final question, will he get the answer he needs? Or will he have to wait to see if Narcissa is right?


_This was written for the monthly oneshot prompt at Caesar's Palace:_ _"_ _NEW"_ _or a word that_ _"RHYMES WITH 'NEW'"_ _that leads to something exciting in the story._

 _Thanks to Shillan Seva for beta-ing. They did a great job!_

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Lucius lay on his deathbed, pale as the curtains that hung like ghosts around him. His eyes were closed and his hands were folded over his heart. His hair lay like spiderwebs, falling thinly over the silken bedsheets, and his skin was stretched taut over sharp-angled bones, sinking deep into his cheeks and around his eyes, making his face appear skeletal. If it weren't for the faint, shuddering rise and fall of his chest, Draco would have thought that he was already dead.

Narcissa hovered over him, fluffing the expensive antique pillows and gently moving his head into a more comfortable position. Every time Lucius moved, the stench of death billowed into the air making Draco feel sick. His stomach churned. He wanted to rip the window open and vomit into the clean, living air outside.

But he couldn't have moved anyway. He was frozen, transfixed, staring at the empty body of his father. He wondered how on earth proud, pureblood Lucius Malfoy had become this skeleton, slowly decaying in his own bed.

Only a month ago, Lucius had returned from Azkaban. And since then, he quietly wasted away in his Manor among his jewels and his gold. Every day Draco woke to find him just a bit sicker than he was the day before, just a bit closer to death. But in his eyes, there was the faintest fire - his magic, still burning inside of him, perhaps burning him alive. It glowed an icy blue, and made Draco shiver. For the madness there was a living, breathing thing. It twisted and contorted grotesquely, it shivered as if it was cold. It rocked back and forth on its heels in the shadowed corner of Lucius's bedroom, with its hand braced against the wall as if the floor was going to fall away. It raised its wand and destroyed anything in its path and tortured anyone who dared to stand in its way. It lifted its cane high into the air and brought it down like a swift shadow, and no one would even have noticed if it weren't for the crack, and the pain that nearly made them stumble, time and time again.

Draco shuddered.

Narcissa noticed. She turned, moving her gray, unwashed hair out of her eyes and crept closer to him. Quietly, they all moved quietly, unwilling to wake him and face the madness in his eyes. And Narcissa whispered, almost silently, so as not to disturb him while he died.

"Do not worry, Draco," she whispered, and she lifted a shaking hand to move the hair out of his eyes. "We live on, remember? Your father may die, but his magic, and his soul will not. The spirit of Lucius Malfoy will breathe forever." And she smiled, somehow, pretending to be happy. Pretending that she believed it, and that it was okay. That it was a good thing.

Draco did not smile in return. He stood with his back straight, staring blankly at her and her smile. For, somewhere deep in Narcissa's dark eyes, the madness was waiting. Writhing, twisting, turning like fire, licking at her brain, and digging its razor-sharp nails into the sides of her skull.

Narcissa smiled again, attempting to be reassuring, then she walked out of the room that smelled like death, leaving the door open behind her. Draco waited until the faint sounds of her footsteps had died away.

Then he crossed the room and flung the window open. Cool air washed over him, but it did not ease the sickness that had settled in his gut. Draco knew that it was there to stay. So he turned back to his father's bedside, put his hands on the expensive silken sheets and leaned over him, just to look.

To look at the stern, proud face of a Malfoy, now thin, now sharp, now like a skull. And it reminded Draco of the dark lord, and so he looked away, letting his eyes trail down his father's body. To the hands with the white, dead skin stretched over knuckles and bones and joints that stuck out oddly. To the black suit that he was wearing, too uncomfortable to lie in, so he must be sleeping in the clothes that he was to be buried in.

Draco could remember Lucius in that same suit, only a month ago, as he sat like a statue in the Ministry's spiked chair, bound with ropes. But his head had been held high, and there had been a proud, twisted smile on his face that made the people in the audience watch, afraid, as Lucius was sentenced to madness in Azkaban. And in that moment, the spiked chair had looked like a throne, and Lucius had been the king, looking up at his subjects and smiling.

Draco swallowed down the bile that rose sourly into his throat. His stomach flipped, making him groan with the sickness, with the smell of death, with the hidden madness, all eating him alive.

And then Lucius's eyes flipped open.

He stared at the ceiling for a few moments, staring wildly out of icy, blank eyes. And then they snapped to Draco's face, fixing him with a crazed glare like a dagger, it was so sharp. Draco moved his hands away from the bed, bringing them to his sides. But he did not move away. He only sucked in a sharp breath as his near-dead father watched him with the madness writhing in his eyes.

And the magic, burning like a wildfire. It was so colorful, and so beautiful, that in that moment Draco could almost believe that when his father's body wasted away, some part of him would live on.

And he hoped, desperately, that it was true.

Something snapped.

The poised, confident Malfoy mask fell away, revealing a sobbing eighteen-year-old boy, kneeling at the deathbed of his father. Draco's heart was wrenched out of his chest through ragged, convulsing gasps. His throat burned with bile, and his body shuddered as it poured out painful, bloody tears.

And then he felt a hand on his shoulder.

It was not warm. It was cold. As if it were already dead. Draco looked up, slowly, with his heart pounding wildly in his chest, to see the bony hand of Lucius Malfoy, gripping his shoulder so tightly that his nails dug into Draco's flesh. Lucius's eyes met his, and they were wide and mad and blue.

Father," Draco gasped, and stood again to lean over his father's body. "Will you miss me?" he asked. His voice was hoarse from crying, from ripping the flesh out of his throat.

Lucius moved his hand to grip Draco's, feebly, with his stick-like fingers wrapped eerily around Draco's wrist. He opened his pale, cracked lips. At first, all that came out was a wheeze, and his body folded painfully in on itself. His head was lifted off of the pillow, and his face was twisted with pain. And then it stopped, his body relaxed, and his head hit the pillow again with a hollow, sickly thud.

And this time, when Lucius opened his mouth, barely audible, broken words came out. Draco leaned closer to hear, with his long strands of hair nearly brushing Lucius's skeletal face. "You?" Lucius echoed, eerily. His voice dropped to a whisper, and the faint ghost of a smile flickered over his lips. "There's no need," he whispered. The madness burned in his eyes, dancing, yellow and bright as the sun.

And then he lunged forward, like a corpse coming to life, his mouth agape in a horrible scream that sounded like it was ripping the lungs from his body. And Draco recoiled in disgust, but it was too late, for Lucius's pale, dead hands wrapped around his son's throat, choking the life out of him. Draco's hands jerked to his neck, trying to pry away his father's fingers, but they were suddenly strong as stone, and he couldn't move them. Then the panic hit him like a blow to the head, making everything spin and go dark, making stars dance in front of his eyes. He struggled, flailing like a puppet, uselessly. His father's hands were strong with the magic of madness, and Draco could not get away. His world became blurred and silent, and his hands fell to his sides.

Wild, crazy magic slowly sucked the life out of Draco's body, and he fell to his knees with Lucius's hands still wrapped around his neck and his claw-like nails scraping the skin from his throat. Draco's body went slack, his heart stopped beating, his lungs stopped working. And Lucius let go of him, letting him fall to the floor in a heap.

The madness burned like a fire, and Lucius finally lost himself to it. His body fell like a stone to the ground, and the madness rose up in a spiral of smoke and disappeared.


End file.
